


Eleventh Hour

by avi17



Category: The Dark Crystal (1982), The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Other, multi-chapter, unfortunately
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:54:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28862913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avi17/pseuds/avi17
Summary: The Heretic and the Wanderer gave the gelfling a sword, a shard, and a seed of hope. They thought that was enough. Faced with a turn in the tide and the realization that their plans have failed, they have a choice to make.
Relationships: skekGra & urGoh (Dark Crystal), skekGra/urGoh (Dark Crystal)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Good lord I started this in December 2019 🤣 What a year. This was the one thing I wanted to write for this fandom, even if there are only a few of us still around. It will be 4-5 parts total, just gotta figure out where exactly to divide things.

It has been just over three trine since the first defeat of the Skeksis- when the Heretic and the Wanderer had sent the chosen few on their way with little more than hope- before gelfling again set foot upon the Circle of the Suns.

They arrive just as the setting suns paint the desert sky the color of blood- a small, haggard group, laden with armor and traveling packs, winded from the precarious climb. A few faces among them, skekGra and urGoh remember. Brea is harder and more world-weary than when they first met, looking more like a hunter or trader than a princess. Deet, on the other hand, looks oddly frail- limbs spindly and thin, faded purple veins crawling over her skin, eyes cloudy and distant, as though seeing something beyond the stone and tapestry of their home. 

The boy Rian- who had found the Dual Glaive and rallied the gelfling to that first victory- is not with them. Nor is Lore, whose familiar silhouette they have watched for eagerly on the horizon since his departure. 

Most of the gelfling, however, they do not recognize. They are a mixture of every clan-  _ unity _ , skekGra reflects drily, forced upon them by the direst of circumstances. There is a somber Spriton boy whose pack is crammed with sketches and letters, and a disheveled Drenchen with an ugly slash across his face and a leg wrapped in a crude splint. A one-eyed Stonewood still garbed as a castle guard, and a red-haired Vapran in the faded blue of a Paladin. A group of childlings- orphans, by the look of them- some sniffling and cowering at the sight of a Skeksis, others poking curiously around their colorful clutter. 

Together they number perhaps a few dozen.

_ So many,  _ he thinks,  _ and yet so few.  _ The news had been scattered but largely hopeful- the Skeksis driven back, Gelfling strongholds fortified, skirmishes and stalemates....until it had stopped coming altogether. They had feared a turn in the tide, certainly, but...

_ This cannot be  _ **_all_ ** _ that are left. _

A squeak from one of the childlings draws his attention, and he glances down to find a small girl half-hidden behind Brea's skirt, fearful eyes peering out of a brown and blue face. 

"I-is it going to eat us?" she whispers.

"No," Brea murmurs, stroking her hair and letting out a deep shaky breath, the sort that sounds as though it was held in for a very long time. "We're safe."

\---

They welcome their guests with much less fanfare and theatricality than the first time. Several of the gelfling bear fresh injuries from their last fight, so urGoh methodically sets to work, grinding medicinal herbs in the way of the mystics with two hands and tearing an unused blanket into bandages with the other two. SkekGra, meanwhile, begins to rummage through the baskets and clay jars that serve as their pantry- he has never been an especially skillful cook, but his ineptitude with medicine is far greater, and mediocre food is better than no food at all. But their stores have already grown sparser than usual- the traders have passed by less and less frequently, and several unum ago they had disappeared altogether. It had been the first hint that something was amiss- and perhaps should have spurred them into action then. With an unpleasant knot in his stomach, he realizes that they have grown complacent.

Elbow-deep in a sack of root vegetables, he is so distracted that he startles when a voice speaks up from near his shoulder.

“U-uh...excuse me?”

It’s the young Spriton, braids smoothed, sleeves rolled up- and looking almost laughably terrified of him. The sort of creature skekGra would find it immensely amusing to tease- but that would be cruel after all they’ve been through. Instead, he raises a brow and asks, “Yes?”

The Spriton gulps, but the tense set of his shoulders relaxes a bit. “I…hello? My name is Kylan.”

SkekGra bares his teeth in a grin. “I am skekGra, though my  _ detractors  _ call me Heretic.” He lets his armful of tubers spill onto the table and brushes the dirt from his sleeves. “I suppose they were right.” He would certainly rather be a heretic than a murderer.

The gelfling- Kylan- lets out a nervous chuckle. "I know. Brea and Deet- a-and Rian, before- they told us about you. They, uh-" he gulps, still looking like skekGra might take a bite out of him, "-called you the  _ fun _ Skeksis."

He doesn't feel like much fun right now, but he still barks out a laugh at that. “And so I am! What can I do for you?” With another somewhat hollow laugh, he adds “If you’re hoping for an encore of our  _ legendary _ opera, I’m afraid it will have to wait.”

Kylan blinks- perhaps his friends had left that part out of the story- and shakes his head. “Actually, I thought maybe I could help you. I’m still not much of a warrior, but I know my way around a cookfire.” He adds a bit ruefully, “Have to make myself useful somehow.”

SkekGra can’t help but laugh again, but it’s kinder this time. “Nonsense, nonsense! A warrior can hardly fight on an empty stomach.” he cackles, before realizing that the counters and tables they built so many trine ago are roughly the height of the gelfling’s forehead. “Hrm...let’s see if we can find you something to stand on.”

\---

They manage a passable meal between the two of them, enough for everyone, and for a moment the room falls into silence as the gelfling tear into what must be the first substantial food they’ve had in days. SkekGra barely touches his own, instead letting his eyes roam through the crowd, taking in details the way he once did as a strategist, trying to piece together the events that led them there. The most obvious addition he had somehow overlooked is the baby strapped to Brea’s back, now a restless bundle in her arms. She seems too young still to be a mother, but it has the pink of her cheeks, the pale wisps of her hair. He could be wrong. They all seem impossibly young to him.

As they eat, they begin to speak, their trials pouring out unprompted, as though they have been craving someone to hear them. And so skekGra and urGoh listen.

His initial fears are unfounded- they are not all that remains of the resistance, not quite. Some had set out upon the silver seas in search of aid, and most of the Dousan had all but melted into the shifting sands of the Crystal Desert, as was their way- and as skekGra and urGoh had noticed all too late. But the news they bring is grimmer than he could have imagined- Ha'rar all but destroyed, Stone-in-the-Wood and Sami Thicket abandoned and their inhabitants scattered across Thra. Abominations, as never seen before, stinking of rot, pouring across the land to snatch gelfling from the battlefield and their beds alike.

SkekGra had taken a bowl of his own concoction, if only to prove it was edible, but it sits untouched, and a glance beside him shows urGoh’s much the same. A tufted tail wraps around his, silently grounding, reassuring, but ultimately no more use than food in filling the pit of dread growing in his stomach.

“Yeah, it was going great at first,” the Drenchen says, mouth full of stew and voice full of resentment. “We had them all but under siege in the castle for almost two trine.”

“We knew it would take time to starve them out,” Brea continues, balancing her bowl precariously on one knee “They had barely begun the year’s tithing rounds, and my sister sent word to every last merchant and farmer to cut off trade with the castle.” Her lips curl in a humorless smile. “They had been taking far more than they needed from us for so long that it never quite had the impact we wanted, but I hope we at least made their lives unpleasant for a while.”

SkekGra can’t quite resist an inappropriate little snort at the thought of his former comrades sitting around a bare banquet table, bemoaning the absence of their favorite delicacies or the threadbare state of their once-decadent robes. “I’m sure you did.” The gelfling would likely be surprised by how little it takes.

The one-eyed guard shakes his head, eyes haunted. “Didn’t end up mattering, did it?” His food sits mostly untouched. “Not with what they were making in there.”

“It mattered,” Kylan replies softly. “It gave us time.” Not time to plan, skekGra realizes, but time together- with loved ones, as one people- before it was ripped away.

Words seem to fall short in describing the creatures the gelfling call Garthim, and every picture skekGra can put together in his mind from their accounts is horrific- the black glint of hard arathim exoskeleton, but piled into massive, monstrous shapes, animated through what dark means he can only speculate. Any semblance of a siege had been broken in one dreadful night once they were numerous enough to be unleashed. They rarely killed, but that was only because dead gelfling were of no use as sustenance. A much worse fate awaited those they captured.

The stories continue until long after skekGra can bear to hear them without allowing an outburst to tear its way free.  _ Many paths _ , Mother Aughra had said in her vague way the last time they'd spoken.  _ We all have a part to play in shaping the destiny of Thra. _ And so they thought they had. But prophecy is an inexact game, and can be a dangerous one. They had never dreamed things could go so wrong so fast.

“We thought they were  _ scared _ of us,” Gurjin says with a bitter laugh. His had been another home lost, he had related with fists clenched in rage- the swamps fouled with blood and decay, for the Garthim could wade and swim and traverse the treacherous ground as the Skeksis' carriages never could. The fate of the Grottan tribe is less certain. They have not been seen in many unum, but the caves are winding and vast and only their inhabitants know their full depths. SkekGra had ventured there in his time as a warlord, but had barely scratched the surface. There may yet be hope there.

Brea shakes her head. “They  _ are _ scared of us. That’s why they built those things to destroy us, so they wouldn’t have to. We missed our chance.”

Another familiar voice pipes up for the first time, soft and hoarse from disuse, yet just as earnest as the Heretic remembers. “Rian...didn’t want us to stoop to their level...and become killers.”

Brea only shakes her head. “We should have.”

SkekGra feels urGoh’s fingers entwine with his own, seeking comfort as much as offering it. He squeezes back, and says nothing.

\---

That first night, there are gelfling tucked into every nook and cranny of their den atop the Circle, including where its residents normally sleep. The Heretic instead sits on the rocky ledge outside their door, wide awake beneath the glow of three moons, restlessly whittling a chunk of wood into a rough likeness of a little Podling body. There isn't much point- he doubts they will ever have occasion for another performance- but he needs something to do with his hands or he'll go even more insane than he already has.

The heavy shuffle of urGoh's feet is so familiar that he doesn't even look up at the figure that sits down next to him. He smells of smoke and safety- the gelfling blood from hours before thoroughly washed away- but even that is not enough to calm skekGra's frenzy.

"Are you… alright?"

"What kind of stupid question is that?" skekGra snaps before he can stop himself. "Of course not!" UrGoh looks placid and unfazed, and he grinds his break in frustration. " _ We _ did this. We- we didn't do enough to help them."

UrGoh attempts to cover one of skekGra’s hands with his own, and frowns when it is jerked away. "We did...all we could."

"Did  _ what _ ?" he yells in response, forgetting to keep his voice down. “Threw them a magical sword and sent them on their merry way?” His tightening grip accidentally snaps the little wooden podling in half, and he throws it to the ground with a grunt frustration. It's too fitting a representation of what he feels responsible for in the flesh. "We knew what the Skeksis were capable of long before the rest of Thra did! They  _ showed _ us, unless you’ve somehow forgotten!” Snarling, he tugs at the bolt in his head, ignoring the jolt of searing pain between his eyes even as urGoh winces. “We sat around here amusing ourselves and left them riddles, and let them spend three trine fighting the battle we’ve been hiding from in this hole for a hundred times that!”

UrGoh is silent for a moment, dabbing at the blood oozing from the phantom wound on his forehead. SkekGra hadn’t even felt the trickle down his face. “It is…….their battle…...now. They…..are Thra. We…….are only…..two. Only us.” Still, his eyes are heavier than usual, and skekGra can read every line, every twitch. He is not unaffected. “We didn’t…...know…...it had gotten…....so bad.”

SkekGra is seized by the urge to throw something at him, but instead snarls, “ _We_ _should have!_ Stop-” it takes him a moment to put it into words, as obvious as it seems- “stop being such a fucking _mystic_! The fact that we chose not to _pay attention_ doesn’t excuse us! We can’t just- sit here and twiddle our thumbs while everything around us dies!” He shoots urGoh a glare that he doesn’t deserve, harsher words tumbling out of his mouth before he can shove them back in. “Maybe you’re fine with that now, maybe you’ve ended up just like the rest of them after all. But I’m not.”

UrGoh looks hurt- and skekGra immediately hates himself- but he stays quiet and lets skekGra rage. The logical, pragmatic part of skekGra’s brain- what little remains of it- knows that he is speaking nonsense. It is their fight too, but there are only two of them, old and withered, grown soft and comfortable and  _ weak _ in their complacency. What more  _ could _ they have done? They have received the visions Thra has seen fit to reveal to them, but they have no further gift of foresight, and whatever outcomes Aughra may have seen, she has chosen to keep to herself. Perhaps there had simply been no path that led to victory- but no, skekGra refuses to believe that. He, of all creatures, knows that the trajectory of events-  _ destiny _ \- is never set in stone.

Still, it’s impossible not to feel blindsided. Perhaps they had been too hopeful, but that first victory had shifted the tide. They had seen the arm of the Skeksis pull back from Thra, heard news of further victories and fortifications, celebrated that their circuitous plan to put the tools in the right hands was working. They had dared allow themselves to dream of reunification- it had seemed only a matter of time, after all, until the gelfling repaired the crystal- even though the dream is muddier, less certain than it had once been since they stand to lose as much as they gain. They had thought they had time to think of such things, to treasure what time they had left as two separate beings who could converse, touch, embrace.

Everything urGoh says makes sense. They hadn’t _ known.  _ But it doesn’t matter. There is no excuse for what they have allowed to come to pass.

He opens his eyes to find urGoh studying his face, hurt replaced with contemplation. UrGoh is not a creature capable of holding a grudge, and after hundreds of trine, he knows better than to take skekGra’s babbling to heart. It’s doubtful he would still be around otherwise. He turns toward his mirrored half, dusky skin melting into the night sky, the Sisters reflected bright and unusually fierce in his eyes. There is nothing in him of the other mystics, and skekGra knows it. “You…...are...wrong.” SkekGra nearly interrupts as he always does, but something in urGoh’s face keeps his beak shut. “Nothing…….about this….is fine.  _ I _ ...am not……” He trails off, his meaning plain. After a moment of silence- brief, for him- he adds, “But that is not……...why you are angry.”

“And why am I angry?” skekGra snaps.

The mystic cups skekGra’s beak, strokes his jaw with a thumb, in that gentle way that always makes him feel uncomfortably vulnerable. "You are……no longer……...one of them,” he murmurs, even as his fingers trace weathered skin, a curved beak, catch on sharp teeth that betray that he  _ is _ , in form if not in heart. “This…...is not…….your fault.”

SkekGra wilts, the manic rage melting into more difficult feelings to face.  _ Grief.  _ **_Guilt._ ** As always, urGoh sees right to the truth buried deepest in his heart, too quietly insightful for his own good, too adept at peeling back the layers skekGra had plastered over his own feelings for so long.

The rage was easier.

He had decided long ago that he wanted no more blood on his hands, but he sees it there anyways, spilled as surely by his own inaction as by the other skeksis’ violence. Are they so different from the mystics, really? UrGoh is skekGra in so many ways, but he doesn’t understand- has never understood- what it is to carry the weight of so much death, to be dogged by the stench of battle long-abandoned and haunted by the screams he had caused and the repulsive joy he had found in them.

UrGoh is what skekGra might have been if he had ever been able to truly know peace. SkekGra loves and hates him for that.

He blinks away tears, hot and bitter and angry, but urGoh catches them before he can deny their existence. A heavy arm wraps around his shoulders, pulling him close without the judgement he deserves, and he finally allows himself to crumple into the embrace and weep- for uncountable lives devoured and sundered forever from their rest, for the decay of the only world they can remember as their home, for the guilt at having allowed it to happen. For the end of long, languid, loving days in peace, for this surely is the end, whatever happens next.

“We can’t send them off alone again,” he croaks. He has no more concrete idea of what they should do- what they  _ can _ do- beyond that conviction, but he puts it out into Thra as a promise. For a moment, he fears urGoh will retreat into passivity, but despite the foolish things he had said in anger, that fear is in vain. This is the being who stood hand-in-hand with him and faced the wrath of the Skeksis to deliver the unwelcome truth, and suffered the consequences by this side. Courage that perhaps they have both lost as the trine have slipped by- but nothing is lost forever.

Now, urGoh only nods. “No…….we cannot.”

He can only hope that they are not truly too late.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A timely update? In MY fic? It's more likely than you think!
> 
> In fairness, this one was mostly already done. It might take a little longer for the next one, but I'm making good headway on it. Enjoy!

SkekGra blinks in annoyance as a drop of icy cave water falls into his eyes, obscuring the patch of moss he is picking at with his talons. Their stores of food, enough to last just the two of them the rest of the trine, are running low already, and the Dousan with whom they had once traded are long gone. The caves are a poor substitute- only moss and crawling insects and a few blind fish in the parts they can reach- but it's better than nothing. For now, at least. 

He startles at the sound of footsteps, but only for a moment- there is a lightness to them that can only be gelfling. And so it is- Brea creeps warily into the passageway like a creature who has never been underground, which perhaps she has not. When she makes her way to his side, he returns to scraping at the moss-mottled wall. "Come to scrounge up something to nibble, gelfling?" he chuckles. "I'm afraid the pickings are quite slim.”

"No," she says haltingly, and when the Heretic turns, she presses something bundled in a cloth into his hands. "I…wanted to return this to you."

When he peels back the cloth, he finds a familiar little disc of crystal and stone, cracked but still feebly glowing. 

He runs his thumb along the fracture, feeling oddly numb, and hears Brea swallow before speaking. "He...he did his best."

After a moment, he realizes that he isn't sure if she means Lore or the little podling who had absconded with him. Lore, at least, can be remade, and on some level he knows it's foolish to grieve for him. He wasn't alive, not truly, and he had more than fulfilled his original purpose, but he was still something that he and urGoh had made, piece by piece with their own hands. Skeksis and Mystics are half-creatures who cannot breed- they had never thought otherwise, as much fun as they might have had over the trine- so a creation that could move and touch and almost think was as close as they might ever come to a child. But still, _made_ he was, of stone and sand and thought, and they could do it again.

The latter possibility does not bear thinking about. Another pang of sorrow, in a deep sea of grief. If he dwells on it, he’ll drown. He suspects she feels the same.

Brea lets out a soft sigh and sinks down to sit delicately upon a mossy rock. The warm exhale of the Breath of Thra blows her hair back in a silvery curtain, and in its primordial glow, she looks younger than ever- but at the same time, worn and sad.

“We meant to go this way,” she murmurs, and skekGra sits opposite her within the narrow passage to listen. “That’s...why we planned to come here, at first. Deet told me all about it before the first battle- how to ride the currents to Domrak and the caves even deeper underground. We’d have to avoid the Nurlocs, if any of the darkened ones are still alive, but the Garthim could never reach us there.” The baby who seems always to be strapped to her back now stirs, sniffling and yawning, and she reaches a hand back for her to grasp in her tiny fingers. “But every time we stopped they found us, and last time they tore up Deet’s wing and broke Gurjin’s leg, and-” She sighs. “I guess it was too easy a solution.”

“You still could,” he replies, glancing down at the alluring tunnels where he himself could never go. “Take the ones who are strong enough now and come back for the rest when they’re well enough. We can take care of some of you for a while longer.” _Just not all of you._

She whips her head toward him, eyes fiery with resolution. “ _No,”_ she says loudly that it echoes from the rocks around them. “I...I won’t leave anyone behind again.”

He has no answer for that, other than to wonder who she left behind before.

They sit in silence for a long, oddly peaceful moment, broken only by the baby’s occasional sleepy whimpers. He gathers up all the clumps of moss he had cupped in his robes into a pouch while Brea lifts the little creature around onto her lap, rummaging in her pack to soak a rag in a half-empty jar of nebrie milk.

“Are you their All-Maudra now, then?” he asks, curious. They certainly seem to look to her as a leader, though whether that is by choice or default is anyone’s guess.

She shakes her head. “No. No one is.” She presses the rag to the baby’s mouth, coaxing her to suck. “After my sister-” she cuts herself off, lips pressed tightly together, and busies herself with squeezing the rag to avoid meeting his eye. “She was the last real All-Maudra. I just didn’t want to see anyone else die, so I did what I had to.”

He nods, then lets out a little chuckle that he can tell from her glare is out of place. Waving a hand apologetically, he clarifies. “Might be for the best. That was the Emperor’s doing anyway, you know.”

She turns, still curious in spite of herself. “What was?”

“Having an _All-Maudra_ and all that,” he answers with a shrug. “When we Skeksis first showed up, the gelfling clans were-” he searches for a word, picking unconsciously at the nail while he thinks, “-little more than names, really. Loose. No hierarchy or any of that, and certainly nothing to hate each other over. And no one gelfling or one clan ruled over any of the others.”

Brea frowns. “Really?”

Nodding sagely, skekGra continues, “Indeed. But such harmony was of no use to the Emperor, so we drove the wedge- praised one clan and disparaged another, sowed rumors and mistrust between them.” He clicks his tongue in disapproval, eyes narrowing at the memory. “Mostly skekSil’s work, and never much to my taste. But it worked, and since the Vapra were the oldest and wealthiest and most loyal, we elevated their maudra above all the others.” He meets her eye then, brow raised. “That’s all the _All-Maudra_ ever was- a tool for the Skeksis’ purposes. But more than that, I think you were as alien to the Emperor as we were to you. He couldn’t conceive of creatures who ruled themselves as equals without one to rule over all of them.” He finds himself laughing again, struck by the absurdity of it. They had been so blind. “He feared you then as much as he does now.”

Brea is listening raptly, and skekGra is glad to see that no amount of hardship has extinguished the burning curiosity in her eyes. “I read every book in the Ha’rar library that I could get my hands on, even the ones so old that the pages almost crumbled when I opened them. Even the ones I wasn’t allowed to,” she admits with an embarrassed little laugh. “And I never knew that. It wasn’t in a single one.”

The Heretic nods. “An intentional omission. They never wanted it remembered that the divisions were created from the outside. They were much easier to enforce if you all believed that they were just the _natural order_ of things.” He catches the flash of understanding on her face. _Good._ “When in reality…”

"...It never was at all," she finishes.

In the silence of the caves, a faint echo of music mixes with the distant dripping of water, and after a moment skekGra realizes it is a mix of Kylan’s little flute with the deep, unmistakable thrum of urGoh humming along. It makes him smile, and Brea ruefully shake her head.

“They’re comfortable here,” she says with a sigh. Another sound reverberates through the passage- laughter, turned almost ghostly by the echo. A different sort of music, and one skekGra has sorely missed. “They feel safe...at least, safer than I could make them feel out there. I wish we could just stay here.”

SkekGra wishes that too- that the gelfling could stay and build a life in hiding as they have, sheltered from the horrors that have overtaken the rest of their world. But they cannot, and he can tell she isn’t asking any more of him than he can give- merely wishing, as a child might, for things to be easier.

He nods. “I know.”

\---

Their food stores last nearly another week before they can delay the inevitable no longer.

“Grot is still our best bet,” Brea says, hushed and tense, poring over maps unfolded from Kylan’s pack. For a rare moment she is unhampered by the baby, handed over to Deet’s gentle arms and sleeping soundly. “It’s the only place we can regroup that they can’t get to us.”

The redheaded soldier frowns. He has been cordial enough throughout their time there, but skekGra can at times catch a glimpse of something familiar in his eyes- guilt, _failure._ It is there at full force when he replies. “The northern route takes us over the Claw Mountains and past Ha’rar. Last I saw it was crawling with garthim.”

“That was unum ago. Why would they be there now?” Brea retorts, a bitter edge to her voice. “It’s a ruin. They’ve scraped up every crumb of anything useful. And every gelfling who didn’t make it out.” She crumples a corner of the map reflexively, before smoothing it again with a sigh. “There is nothing for them there anymore.”

Kylan shakes his head sadly. “The alternative is south through Sami Thicket, and we know how dangerous that is.”

“And much too close to the castle for my comfort,” Gurjin adds darkly from his seat in urGoh’s sleeping chair, his splinted leg propped up awkwardly.

“This is the only option we have,” Brea says, the authority in her tone almost masking the bone-deep weariness as she folds the maps back up.

Deet pipes up from where she has curled up in the corner, her voice a balm to the tension. “I can...get us through the caves. Domrak has been abandoned...since the Nurlocs darkened, but...it’s a place to start. We have...ways to communicate down there. We’ll find them.” A tiny smile lifts the corners of her lips. “...My family.”

“And my sister,” Gurjin interjects. “She’s smart, she would have the same idea of where to hide from them that we do.”

“Gurjin-” Brea begins, but he cuts her off, sharp as flint.

“She’s not.” His jaw is clenched in brittle resolution, his fingers digging, white-knuckled, into the carven wood. “I’d know.”

SkekGra only listens- any information he has to offer is centuries-old and surely useless. He has another pressing concern. As the gelfling debate, he slips away to the loft, finding urGoh immersed in a quiet moment with his pipe as expected. UrGoh glances up at him, eyes heavy and soft and always seeming to pierce skekGra’s soul, and he sighs. “The answer…...is no.”

“How do you know what I’m going to say?” skekGra retorts in irritation- but of course he does, he always does. And this time it’s painfully obvious.

UrGoh pats the cushions beside him, and skekGra sits, curling into his side gratefully and breathing in the thick, sweet smoke. They have hardly had a moment alone together since that first night, and after nearly four hundred trine taking their isolation for granted, the time feels somehow more precious now. He noses under urGoh’s chin, feeling for the swell of breath, the thrum of blood. UrGoh loops the end of his tail around skekGra’s own. “You plan to……..ask me…..to stay…...behind.”

He had, and had already known the answer. Still, he sighs and starts in on the jumble of words that have been rolling around in his head all day. “It’s…...it’s too dangerous. We don’t even know how many of these garthim there are, but it seems certain that we will face battle before we find our destination. And you-” he stops, unwilling to insult or patronize his other half but equally unwilling to lie. “-You have never harmed another living creature. I can’t imagine you starting now.” It might be generous to call these abominations living creatures, but it does not change his point. UrGoh is no warrior.

Pulling away enough to meet skekGra’s eyes, urGoh raises a skeptical brow. “You are…..hardly spry…….yourself…….anymore.” When skekGra fails to respond with either laughter or annoyance, urGoh sighs deeply. “The danger…….to me…...is no less………..if you go alone.”

All arguments skekGra might be able to conjure fail in the face of such a simple truth. He could leave urGoh here, seal up their den for all the protection and comfort it could provide, and still it would not matter if he himself was in danger. They are one, and he has not forgotten it. Still, he is reluctant to give in so easily. “I could order you to stay.” His fingers twitch as if to suggest enforcement, violence.

UrGoh only laughs, as he always does when traces of the Conqueror come bubbling to the surface. “You…..certainly…….could.” His tone makes it clear how likely he would be to obey any such orders.

He could beg, too, but there is no point. UrGoh has made up his mind, and whatever fate they face, they will do so together.

They remain twined together, letting the chatter outside blur into white noise. SkekGra finds himself running through scenarios in his head as he once did as a strategist- moving the pieces, searching the paths for positive endings, and finding them few and far between. “If you don’t-” he starts, then cuts off. Further argument feels like a poor use of the time and air shared between them. He settles for simple honesty. “...I can’t protect you out there.”

With the dim light deepening the sunken whorls of his skin, urGoh looks nearly as much a carven statue as the one they built and lost. He has always spent more time in contemplation than his manic counterpart, drifting between dreamspace and reality, and skekGra wonders if he has seen what lies down this particular path. He fears to ask where it might end.

UrGoh shrugs a shoulder and pulls skekGra closer, those heavy eyes drifting shut. “….Nor I…...you.”

\---

Packing is a utilitarian affair- they bring little more than what food they have left, blankets, medicine. With a mournful look, urGoh regards his heavy water pipe and then leaves it- skekGra dreads the returning headache that the smoking keeps at bay, but it is far too cumbersome to travel light and stealthy. After one more shared meal- the chatter and mirth of the previous nights dulled by the prospect of returning to danger outside- the gelfling settle into fitful slumber.

SkekGra, however, watches the sky outside until long after the Brothers have sunk below the horizon and the Sisters replaced them. At the darkest hour of the night, he rummages in a corner, pushing aside boxes of dried herbs and paints and even a bundle of what can only be urGoh's hair. Buried deep in the detritus of centuries of comfort and amusement, he finds his prize, and his hand closes around a hilt of cold metal wrapped in leather. The sword that once had almost been a natural extension of his arm for its familiarity now feels utterly alien to him, and his aged fingers are nearly too weak to hold it. Its sheath is coated in a thick layer of dust, but when he pulls the blade free and runs his finger along it experimentally, he finds it sharp enough to easily split his shriveled skin and bring forth a small bead of blood. Wiping it away hastily on his robes, he glances to urGoh for any sign that the sting had woken him, but finds his form beneath its blanket still rising and falling gently.

The feel and weight of the weapon in his hand brings a flood of memories, the way he imagines dreamfasting must be for gelfling at the touch of another’s hand. There had been a strange, hollow sort of joy in killing back then- it gave him purpose, filled that void that none of the Skeksis liked to talk about with _something_ , but it was never enough. He could have bathed in blood- and practically did at times- but the cruel satisfaction was paper-thin, skin-deep. But it was also all he knew, all he had, all he _was_ \- until his entire existence had been upended in a single day.

Not long after the vision, as they reeled and clung to each other in confusion and wonder, urGoh had grasped his wrist so tightly that the sword had dropped from his hand and pulled him in until they were nose to nose, breathing each other’s air.

 _I want you...to swear to me,_ he had said, his voice stronger, more commanding than skekGra had ever heard it, _that you will never...turn this blade...on another living creature again.”_

“ _But what if-”_ A feeble protest, one that urGoh had silenced with a mere look.

“ _Swear...it.”_

He had agreed without further objection- even then he would have done anything urGoh asked so directly, but even if he had not, the Conqueror-no-more was done with killing. And for nearly four hundred trine, he had kept to his word- avoiding skekMal whenever he ventured too near to the desert, living off roots and gourds and fruit and other things he might have once dismissed as podling food. Learning to temper his anger until even the urge to do harm had gone beyond recall or desire, and living a life of peace and of true purpose.

...And in the end, staying holed up in safety until it was far, far too late.

He can feel urGoh's eyes on him in the darkness- it had been too much to hope that he would not wake him. He returns the blade to the safety of its sheath for now and tucks it into his packed supplies. He is oddly glad to be rid of it. Once, a sword in his hand had made him feel powerful, but now he feels diminished, even ashamed. He steps over a snoring Drenchen to sit beside urGoh, resting his cheek against the swell of his back. UrGoh’s chin is pillowed on his great arms, and skekGra is struck by how gnarled and bony his hands- that had once surprised him with their strength- have become.

When did they grow so old? And at what point did he stop fearing it so much? In their early trine, he had counted every new wrinkle and lost handful of hair, hated every sign that their treacherous, deteriorating bodies would eventually fail them. But urGoh had never been bothered by them, and so eventually skekGra had learned to follow his lead and simply exist, one day at a time. It had certainly been a happier way to live, but looking at the centuries now behind them- somehow both endless and gone in the blink of an eye- only intensifies the feeling that the time that remains to them is growing short.

However much they have left, they will have to make it count. No more waiting.

He twines his fingers into urGoh’s mane, seeking comfort as much as giving it. "...I may have to break my promise to you,” he murmurs, wondering if urGoh will even remember what he means.

Urgoh nods sadly, and skekGra knows then that he does.. "I…..understand. "

\---

At the rising of the first sun, they leave their home as it is- extra furs and blankets strewn about everywhere, half finished puppets and trinkets piled on their work benches, painted hangings fluttering gently in the desert wind. It looks little different than any other morning, but an air of finality hangs over the place, and as the gelfling begin the climb down to the sands, the Heretic turns to his companion of the last nearly four hundred trine spent within.

"Do you think we'll ever return here?" he asks a bit wistfully. He had despised the Circle of the Suns in the beginning, thinking it nothing more than a barren prison in which they were forced to cower, on pain of death should their whereabouts be discovered. And indeed it had been little more than a drafty, sandy hole, providing little more than shelter from the desert’s unpredictable weather, when urGoh had first dragged him inside. Their first days had been spent struggling to nurse each other with no supplies, no food, and no idea what to do next after their efforts to enlighten their fellows had so utterly failed. The memories are hazy- skekGra had barely been able to think with a brand new hole in his head, let alone speak or do anything of use at all- but he recalls curling up more than once on this same balcony, the sudden drop before him feeling like the edge of the world that falls away into nothingness. In a way, it was.

But in time, they had made the most of it, and it had become a home- a bit haphazard, perhaps, but built with care and love, and filled with a thousand little pieces of them. It had kept them safe and comfortable for hundreds of trine, sheltered their vision quests and their work

The Mystics used no currency, UrGoh had told him once, nor had they any use for exotic foods or liquors or decadent fabrics or any of the other things that the Skeksis hoarded for themselves so greedily. Rather, it was only the care with which an object was made that could imbue it with value, or as close as the urRu had to the concept. Each stitch had meaning, each carving carried the maker’s intent. The Gelfling are not so different, he has learned in the recent days- though the Skeksis’ materialism has seeped into their once-untouched ideals, the core remains the same.

Time, thought, _love_ \- that was all that made material things matter.

Many trine ago, skekGra had considered that to be sentimental dreck. But looking at the colorful clutter of their life for the last time, he thinks that in that, they have been rich indeed. 

UrGoh cocks his head with a small, pensive smile, and skekGra wonders if his thoughts are much the same. "Perhaps…..someday."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Feedback is always appreciated (and tbh fuels me XD), so please let me know your thoughts!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, this has officially become another chapter longer XD This was only supposed to be the first half of the current chapter, but it turned into its own thing and I kinda just let it.

The sands of the Crystal Desert are as treacherous as ever, their vastness all the more unsettling for how devoid they are of the life that had once teemed from beneath every stone. Though the Heretic and Wanderer have far more experience traversing the sands than the gelfling, the quiet unnerves skekGra more than he dares say. Despite their cautious pace, hampered not only by the terrain but by the small strides of childlings and Gurjin’s unsteady limp, one arm slung around the red-haired soldier’s shoulders- they do not encounter a single creature. Perhaps this is a blessing- the garthim would be unwelcome company, though skekGra can still only imagine their distorted forms, and one of the great desert beasts maddened by the Darkening even more so- but as a first glimpse of what Thra has become during their seclusion, it fills him with a bone-deep dread.

The few plants they come across tell a story that the smooth, glittering dunes cannot- the stems are withered and corrupted, the leaves curled and black. Nothing that once was edible remains safe, and the gelfling avoid even touching them- save Deet, who spends the evenings weaving garlands of wilted desert flowers, letting them fall in haphazard swirls in the sand when she finishes.

“I had never seen flowers like this before I came to the surface,” she murmurs on the second night, tracing one brittle petal delicately enough to keep it intact. “I always wanted to try this, but it seemed wrong to pick them and kill them just because I liked them.” A faint violet glow seems to stick to her fingers while she works, seeping into the veins scarred into the skin, but she pays it no heed. With a sad little smile, she lets the flower drift to the ground, a spot of faded red in a sea of gold. “It can’t hurt them now.”

The steady huff of urGoh’s sleeping breath mixes with the sleepy murmurs of the childlings he has allowed to curl against his side for warmth against the dry, chill wind. SkekGra recalls those same flowers from what feels like a lifetime ago- vibrant and soft and twined loosely into urGoh's hair where their hands are tangled now- but keeps the memory locked away, safe and silent.

With their home already far away, they are grateful to leave the eerie silence of the sands behind the next morning. 

\---

SkekGra spends the arduous, freezing trek over the mountains bracing himself for what has become of the once-beautiful gelfling capital he has not seen in countless trine, but words still fail him when the silhouette of the Citadel slowly rises into view over the horizon. The Rose Sun at its zenith casts the gently falling snow in a pale pink glow, but even that beauty cannot soften the desolation before them. There was no siege or long battle here- it was overtaken in a single, unstoppable flood, so in a way it is frozen in time, littered with the detritus of whatever its inhabitants were doing at the moment they were forced to flee. There is a moment of tense silence among the gelfling at the sight, and skekGra cannot help but feel like an intruder. He looks to urGoh, but on his face finds only wide-eyed horror, the plainest he has seen it since the refugees first arrived at their door.

Brea’s jaw is clenched hard enough that it must be painful, but she announces all the same, “We stop here today. Look for supplies, but stay in pairs. No one goes off on their own.”

The eerie quiet has followed them here, hanging over them as they roam the empty streets, avoiding broken glass and other debris. There is a moment of trepidation at entering and all but looting these abandoned houses- skekGra cannot help but think again of their own, frozen in much the same way- but it passes quickly in the face of pragmatism, and the gelfling begin to peel away, until only the two strange, hunched figures among them remain.

It is strange, skekGra realizes, to wander again, and he allows himself a selfish moment to breathe the sharp, cold air and take in their unfamiliar surroundings. He can hear the same relief in urGoh’s deep sigh- one once known as The Wanderer was not meant to be caged for so long, even if this is not how either of them would have chosen to see the world again. There is wonder mingled with the ever-present grief as they wind through the sprawling city, so much grander than it was when last they saw it, yet also beginning to crumble and decay in its abandonment. In awed silence, they make their way to the citadel of the All-Maudra, trudging through the twisted gates and dragging themselves up the stairs- skekGra not as much quicker than his other half as he would like to believe.

“Keep up, you plodding lump,” he snaps over his shoulder, long-suffering and impatient.

UrGoh offers a small, welcome smile and raises a brow. “Don’t……...trip.”

“Why would I-” he begins, but then urGoh prods at his bony ankle with the end of his staff hard enough that he nearly does- and then they’re laughing, and for a moment they are once again the merry, foolish creatures they had become before the weight of their greatest mistake yet had settled on their shoulders.

The vast, airy throne room is a mess- hangings torn, floors gouged by what can only be claws, the throne little more than a heap of smashed stone and shards of stained glass. UrGoh reaches down to gingerly pick one up, flipping in between his fingers so it flashes in the sunlight like the strings of desert glass and crystal he had been so fond of hanging in their home. He tilts his head, doubt mingled with sorrow. “Garthim……..did……..this?”

It is not difficult to believe, skekGra thinks, after the destruction they have already seen. But after a moment, he realizes that it may not be so simple. Most of it looks no different than the rest of the city, but the dais that had once held the delicate throne- long-broken, never repaired- looks to have been shattered from below, not without. He crouches and squints at the yawning passage down into the dark, the crumbling stairs he has not seen in centuries, and cannot help but let out another cackle that echoes too-loud in the stillness of the room. “...I think we did this.”  
  
UrGoh blinks, and skekGra can see the realization slowly dawn in his heavy eyes. It amazes him to this day that their messenger was not discovered before the right moment. Ironically, it was the poisoned protection of the Skeksis that had caused this chamber- a shelter in case of attack in the earliest days after the clans’ division- to pass from the knowledge of even the citadel’s inhabitants through the generations. That false peace had allowed him to sleep undisturbed, until the illusion had shattered and his hour had come.

Now, that hour has passed, and all that is left of their painstaking creation- and their plan- is rubble and dust.

Scratching his chin, urGoh cocks his head at the pit before them. “I suppose…….we should have….found a……..bigger exit.”

SkekGra chuckles, wistful and affectionate. “Little late for that now, you slow creature.”

He feels something then- a shiver, imperceptively light but surely not a trick of his mind- and he reaches into the pocket of his robes to pull out the source. The tiny flicker of light within the cracked crystal disc could perhaps be his imagination too, but the weak vibration is unmistakable as the artifact reacts to the magic woven into the walls of its former resting place. He cocks his head, waiting- though for what, he has no idea- but nothing more dramatic comes, and after a moment, it fades back to its cold stillness.

He catches urGoh’s curious glance, but says nothing and slides the broken object back into his pocket. It is of no use on its own.

And yet...perhaps not only dust remains after all.

\---

As the suns continue their lonely journey across the sky and begin to dip below the silhouetted buildings, the other gelfling begin to trickle into the citadel, laden with the spoils of their reluctant task. It is perhaps a blessing that the garthim are hollow, decayed shells with a mind only for their masters’ orders, for they left behind a good many things that living soldiers would have seized first- stores of dry grain and nuts, salted meats left to hang, thick woolen cloaks stuffed in the back of closets by their owners during the warmer unum. There is room to spread out here, eating and packing and organizing, and within the relative safety of the great vaulted roof, the atmosphere is almost cheerful. It brings an odd pang to skekGra’s heart every time he sees the gelfling at ease, laughing and singing, touching and embracing in an easy camaraderie that the other skeksis would never understand. He had known gelfling once- so many, generations that lived and died as he remained bloodthirsty and strong- but they had seen him as a commander and a figure to be feared. He had preferred it that way- they were little more than tools to the Lords, after all. After the vision, they had instead become a symbol- a paragon of the purity of Thra, to be preserved and protected from the coming destruction.

But it is something else altogether to sit among them- urGoh at one elbow, Kylan at the other as they sort through bundles of food- as equals, to begin to know them merely as individuals. He catches the fond, sad way Deet picks up a wooden spoon from the pile, how Gurjin’s arm wraps tightly around her shoulders in an attempt to cheer her, how Kylan hums softly as he works just as urGoh always does. Tonight the baby is bundled in the arms of a dark-haired Vapran girl who chats conspiratorially with the childlings as they make a game of folding clothes, stopping often to try on a cloak or helm or leather breastplate meant for a much larger gelfling and imagine their heroics- somehow both oblivious to the danger around them and knowing nothing else.

It feels wrong for these creatures- the life of Thra- to survive this way, picking through the leavings of the dead like vultures, but he shakes his head. They deserve better, but there is no place for such principles in the dying world that remains to them.

It has just begun to grow dark when he notices a figure absent, and he squeezes urGoh’s hand reassuringly before clambering stiffly to his feet and walking from the hall, staff clattering noisily on the damaged floors. Without the suns’ warmth, the soft snow has begun to freeze, the glistening ice as slick and treacherous as it is beautiful. He winds the streets slowly, unsure where to even search, and even less certain that he is the right person to do so. The unearthly quiet is broken by shrieking and the beating of wings as a scattering of black shapes drift across the moons overhead. He knows what they must be, though they have managed to avoid them thus far, and he instinctively ducks beneath the remains of a fluttering awning. They pass like an ominous cloud, and he only dares to breathe as the noises fade into the distance. He takes a minute to survey the rounded roofs of the houses against the cliffs, blending into a single, looming shape in the darkness.

When he catches sight of the swooping white silhouette of the great library, it suddenly seems obvious.

The interior of the once-grand building is in an even sorrier state than the citadel, the remains of spindly spiral-stairs scattered among the piles of books and torn pages. Brea sits atop an overturned bannister, curled in on herself, eyes trained on the ground. Her head whips toward the clatter of his staff, but she deflates again upon realizing he is no threat.

“No one goes off on their own, was it?” he asks. Her eyes narrow for a moment, but she seems to realize that there is no accusation in his tone, and she sighs.   
  
“I know. I told Gurjin where I was going, I just…” She trails off, absently fingering the little journal she carries with her and writes in before the suns disappear in the evenings. There is a tense set to her jaw, as though holding in a flood. “There’s too much of my family there. Too many memories." Her gaze drifts up to the drafty ceiling, over the collapsing shelves, a bitter smile on her face in the dim light. "There are memories here too, but at least they're only mine."  


SkekGra nods. Thra is full of ghosts now, lingering in the places they had once called home, their presence inexorable from the very walls they once touched. Every gelfling knows of their greatest city, but Brea may well be the only one left who ever called the citadel home. He imagines having to return to the Circle of the Suns without urGoh, and even with the knowledge that such a thing is impossible, the very idea is unbearable.   
  
“Still, it won’t help anyone for you to be snatched up.” He punctuates the remark with a flick of his talons, but any attempt at humor falls flat. “...Tell me about them.” He has no idea what makes him ask, but she finally looks up at him, so he sits gingerly upon a pile of books and once again simply listens.

“I…” She starts, swallows, falls silent for a moment. “I barely knew what to say about my mother last time I spoke for her. I admired her so much, and just when she finally believed me, she-” A sigh, and another quiet moment. “I know now that she made a lot of mistakes, too, but I still miss her so much. There are so many things I want to ask her.” Her thumb strokes over the embroidered cover of her journal, seemingly grounding herself as she begins to let the words pour out. “Tavra was the soldier of the family. She...held us together, too, when Seladon and I were always so angry with each other. She was the one who was made to lead a war, not me. And Seladon…” Her lips tighten, but the show of frustration does not reach the deep sadness in her eyes. “She made more mistakes than any of us. But she was working to make them right, and finally learning who she was outside of who she was _ supposed _ to be.” SkekGra has no idea what to say to any of this, and wonders for a moment why she feels so willing to show such vulnerability to him, but perhaps the answer is easy- she has had to put on a strong face for her fellow gelfling, and he is something else entirely. She owes him nothing.

“None of this is fair,” she hisses, the grief replaced by anger- and that he understands better. “They should still be here. ...Any of them would have done a better job than me.”

At that, SkekGra frowns. “Nonsense. There is more to being a commander than skill in battle.”

“I know,” she responds, not sounding entirely reassured. “...What about you? Do you ever miss the other Skeksis?”

SkekGra lets out another inappropriate cackle. “Do I miss them? Well, I suppose you can’t spend hundreds of trine with anyone without collecting a few fond memories, but-”  _ No _ feels too simple, too divorced from the time he spent remembering their young, foolish days and hating himself for it, but it is ultimately the truth. “No, not anymore,” he settles on, mouth curling into a small smile. He thinks of the sweet charred smell of incense, of lazy affection and manic creation, of the sense of near-perfect wholeness that none of his kind will ever know or understand. “I have everything I need.”   
  
“That’s good,” she whispers, but the emotion bubbles up unbidden despite her obvious attempts to tamp it down. “I just…look at this.” She gestures at the crumbling shelves, the books shredded beyond repair. “We’ve already lost more than we can ever get back.” She means more than people, he realizes. History, culture, tradition- all are in danger of falling out of memory with entire clans nearly wiped out. Even if the gelfling somehow win, they will never be the same.

Still, he shakes his head. “Perhaps. But as long as you still live, you can remember and rebuild.”

Her head whips towards him, and he is perturbed to see tears brimming in her eyes even as she tries to blink them away. “But how long will that be? You went to all that trouble to make sure the shard was found by the right gelfling, and we lost it. And lost Rian, too. We had  _ one  _ chance, and we failed.” She looks so lost in this dark, isolated moment that it makes his heart ache, and he nearly reaches out to clasp her shoulder, but instead lets his hand curl awkwardly in his lap. The gelfling are so free with their touch, but skekGra has little idea how to comfort anyone but his own other half. The quiet is punctuated by the screech of more crystal bats swooping overhead, but hidden beneath the high ceiling there is no reason to fear them. “Thra gave you and urGoh this vision, that the future of Thra was supposed to be in  _ our _ hands. Gelfling hands. There has to be…have you seen where we go from here?”

He shakes his head and offers her a wry smile. “Aughra is the one who sees all the paths, and she only shares what she wants to. For all that we tried- every way we could think of-” he adds with a chuckle, “-Thra only  _ truly _ spoke to us once. It was enough to make me see the light, but the rest we had to figure out on our own.” It had been easier for them, with the luxury of time and leisure, time to breathe and talk and touch for hours or days, to discover each other as much as they had their path forward. The gelfling have no such time. 

She rubs her eyes with the back of one hand, sniffs and takes in a sharp breath. “I’ve tried that, but sometimes it’s hard to see how we can still come out on the other side of this.” She kicks a piece of debris, listening as the sinister flutter of wings fades again before she finishes. “How do we win when we’ve already lost?”

SkekGra raps his staff on the ground loud enough to startle them both and dislodge several precariously piled books. “You have _ not  _ lost.” It is true enough that from a military standpoint, perhaps they have, but skekGra is no longer merely a Conqueror moving pieces like a puzzle. “The Skeksis are no longer merely seeking to consume you to keep their rotten sacks of meat moving for another trine.” His own is in little better shape, as the aches brought on by such emphatic gestures remind him, but this is no time to become preoccupied with his own slow decay. “Ever since that first defeat, you are a  _ threat. _ And they cannot abide threats- to them or to their rule. They aren’t even thinking about it clearly anymore. The smart thing to do would be to pick you off slowly, prolong the inevitable.” He hates that it is still so easy to think like one of them, but she doesn’t shrink from his words, and the tears in her eyes have dried back into the steely resilience she wears every day. “But they aren’t thinking smart. They’re afraid, and they plan to wipe out every single one of you, even if it means they wither into dust in the end without you.”

She lets out a bitter little laugh. “So barely hanging on is some sort of moral victory?”

SkekGra rolls his eyes, even as he feels his fondness for her grow. “They want every last gelfling dead,” he says bluntly. “As long as even a single one of you lives, they have not won.” The bats have gone for now- though he worries what their gaze may bring down upon them- leaving only the tomblike quiet of the ruined library closing in around them, narrowing the world for a moment to only the two of them. Gelfling and skeksis- enemies by nature, it would be easy to say, but they are no moreso than skeksis and mystics. He knows now that nature is only an excuse. “All that matters is that you survive. The rest will come.”

She meets his eyes with a hint of remaining skepticism, but he can see that she has heard him, at least enough to put one foot in front of the other the next day. That’s enough for now.

“...I hope so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I do feel like this chapter was light on our Mystic boi, but he'll have a lot more content in the next one. Please let me know what you think if you're reading! I am so, so excited to finally be on track to actually finishing this, and the feedback really does fuel me (and let me know what's working, I legit have no experience writing things that aren't oneshots) XD

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think! Most of the second chapter is done, so it shouldn't take too long to get that up.


End file.
